Lokoja – Security operatives in Kogi state
yesterday had hectic time as Staff of local
government councils in the state staged
massive
protest over what the arbitrary removal of
their names from the work force as result of the
staff screening exercise conducted by the
state
government. In Lokoja LG, many of the
workers who went to
check their names at the local government Secretariat along IBB road were shock when
workers who have been taking salaries up to
December last year found their names omitted
from the cleared list while some could not find
their names in both clear and unclear list. The
situation sparked off spontaneous reaction across the three senatorial districts of the
state,
even as some council administrators could not
paste the list of their councils. Council workers
in Lokoja the state capital took
to the only major road (IBB road ) in the state capital, barricaded the road with burning of
tyres
preventing vehicular movements for hours.
Even the presence of security men at the
venue of
the incident could not help as the workers continued to vent their anger on the state
government chanting anti-Bello’s slogans.
Expressing disappointment over the
screening,
one of the council staff Mr Usman Nuhu said
he had spent over twenty years in the council,
wondered the criteria used in screening him
out
of service. He sad, “Dring the screening
exercise I tendered
my diploma certificate and I was screened without any problems, but now they are
saying
that I did not present PGD and Master Degree
certificates which I have never even applied
for. “Imagine people who do not know what
civil service were brought to screen workers. Look
at
the mess they have created now. People who
have been taking salaries till last December
can
not see their names now. How can they classified
workers who have put in over twenty years in
service as ghost workers. “The first list
released last year, over 180 workers
of the council were screened out, but today’s
list over 400 staff of the local government were
nowhere to be found. This exercise was in
shamble and was not aimed at reforming the
service as claimed by the government”
Another staff of the council who spoke to
newsmen at the Secretariat, Asmau Mohammed
said since governor Bello took over the
administration of the state almost one year
now,
she has never taken a dime as salary.
Muhammed who said her name was on clear list
but yet no salary was paid to her, described
the
exercise as a failed venture, alleged that the
state
government had already set the figure of workers at both state and local government
who
they will be paying salaries, as the screening
exercise was just a formality to deceive the
public. She called on President Muhammadu
Buhari to prevail on governor Yahaya Bello to do the
needful to avoid plunging the state into an
endless crises that will disrupt the existing
peace
in the state. Meanwhile, all the tertiary
institutions in the state yesterday commenced their five days warning
strike to expressed their displeasure over
what
they described as intensional removal of their
colleagues from service. On a fact finding to
the Kogi state polytechnic Lokoja by Vanguard revealed that offices and
lecture rooms were under locked and key as
sign
of total compliance to the warning strike. All
efforts to reach the council chairmen proved
abortive, as their cell phones were switched off
while the ALGON chairman was also not in his.